| abstract
| - Because "Attack of the 15.24-Meter Whatever" just doesn't have the same ring to it. This is like Incredible Shrinking Man, except that the ray gun that zapped the character was set on "Grow" instead of "Shrink". Now the protagonists have a huge problem to deal with. For maximum disaster potential, the victim of the growth is usually a pet, wild animal, baby human or other character without a firmly developed sense of morality or sentience who might innocently topple skyscrapers without really meaning it. If the victim is a normal person, instead the process will inevitably fry their synapses, or they'll go on a power trip with delusions of Godhood. Either way, the hero of the story has to find a way to put them back to normal. This generally violates the Square-Cube Law, but that's okay. For humans, expect Magic Pants to be in effect -- can't have a giant *naked* person, after all. The Moral Guardians would freak. Differs from Shapeshifting in that the character generally just becomes a much bigger version of whatever they were before. Pet monkeys and lizards, however, tend to seamlessly morph into either King Kong or Godzilla knock-offs along the way, no matter what their original species were. (And if that happens, expect two or more Japanese tourists to shout "Ahh! Gojira!" and run away.) Episodes of this kind are quite likely to include a Stock Parody or Homage of King Kong: The 50-foot whatever will climb a tower, often with a Distressed Damsel in hand and airplanes buzzing like flies. Imitators often omit the Downer Ending where King Kong falls to his death, though. If the hero wants to fight back, he may be in for a Colossus Climb, if deploying Humongous Mecha is out of the question. Counterattacking from the air is another option, but risks invoking Helicopter Flyswatter. A standard plot for animated shows, but tough to pull off seriously for live action. BMovies latched on to this trope for a time. After all, why settle for the standard-size Monster of the Week when you could have a giant one? Overuse, combined with the aforementioned effects problems, led to this becoming a Discredited Trope for serious live-action. See also:
* Bigger Is Better
* Routinely caused by a Miracle-Gro Monster
* Often overlaps with Attack of the Killer Whatever
* Sizeshifter - More general, two-way, controlled size-changing
* Villains may do this on purpose to Make My Monster Grow
* Our Giants Are Bigger - Creature was already a giant
* Kaiju are the giant monsters that attack Tokyo
* Rent A Zillas are works that aren't about giant monsters, but throw them in anyway. Examples of Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever include:
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)